03 October 2002
Academics, Experts Agree Iraq Needs To Be Rid of Saddam Hussein
(Georgetown University hosts October 3 panel called "Target: Iraq") (870) By David A. Denny Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- A small group of academics and Iraq experts speaking at Georgetown University October 3 seemed to agree that Saddam Hussein's regime has done horrible things to its own people and neighborsand neighbors, but they were not in agreement on how the regime should be removed from power. The panel discussion, titled "Target: Iraq," was sponsored by Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Georgetown professors Samer Shehata and Michael Hudson served as hosts. Eric Davis, a political science professor and director of a Middle East studies program at Rutgers University, opened the discussion by suggesting the current voices on Iraq policy lacked structure and systematic thinking, and, therefore, constituted what he called a of "dialogue of the deaf." He discussed the accusations against the regime, the criteria and evidence to evaluate the accusations, and, finally, what he thought the United States should do about it. For Davis, the human rights abuses of the regime are beyond question: torture and execution of its own citizens without trial, assassination of Iraqi exiles, and the use of poison gas against Iran, a war crime, and against its own people -- the Kurds of Halabjah, where 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed (an act of genocide, which is a crime against humanity). Also, Iraq lied to UN weapons inspectors on numerous occasions after the Persian Gulf War, in violation of its own agreements under UN Security Council resolutions, he said. Davis alsoDavis also said Iraq is a regional threat as demonstrated by its unprovoked attacks of Iran in 1980 and Kuwait in 1990. For Davis, the war crimes and crimes against humanity make Iraq's Ba'ath Party regime a suitable target for an international war crimes tribunal. He said he would like to see a coordinated, international diplomatic effort to try the regime in absentia. After that, he believes a military effort to remove the regime from power would be appropriate, but it must be an international coalition under UN auspices, which would "maximize the freedom of the Iraqi people and minimize their suffering." Laith Kubba, an Iraqi who is a senior program officer with the National Endowment for Democracy and director of the International Forum for Islamic Dialogue in London, focused on the prospect of Iraq after Saddam Hussein -- "The Day After." Iraqis would welcome and have been asking for help to get rid of Saddam for a long time, Kubba said, and do not want to see further delay. For Kubba, the key question is: what would bring a democratic regime to Iraq? If war would do that, that would be acceptable. "But I can see forces creeping to argue [Iraqis] aren't ready for it -- it could bring regional chaos. So the possibility of bringing back [another] dictator is there," he said. The end game should be a constitutional assembly by Iraqis in exile, creating political "rules of the game" which would point Iraq after Saddam toward democracy. Ken Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, but formerly an expert on Iraq and Iran at the National Security Council and before that at the Central Intelligence Agency, however, argued that the United States will have to invade Iraq sometime within the next few years -- before Saddam Hussein is able to make or acquire nuclear weapons. Those who argued for containment under international sanctions in 1991, he said, "were misguided. We assumed Saddam was going to fall within a few months, so a sanctions regime would be merely a short-term need." A second false assumption, Pollack said, was that "a follow-on regime would have to feed its own people," and so would have to deal with the United Nations. "Today containment is on its deathbed," Pollack said, and inspections failed so badly that by 1996 inspectors no longer tried to inspect sites where they thought weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were hidden; instead, they were "trying to crack the hiding mechanism," hoping that if they could do that, they would find the weapons. "And Saddam's gotten better at hiding things" since then, Pollack said. Neither would deterrence work, Pollack said, because "Saddam is a serial miscalculator." He makes key decisions that stun his closest advisers, he said. As an example, he said His military advisers before the Gulf War asked Saddam how they could deal with American stealth fighters and cruise missiles. He said the Iraqi leader replied that the fighter jets "can be seen even by our shepherds," and that Iraq could "throw mud and water" on the radar screens of the cruise missiles, making them miss their targets. This shows that Saddam Hussein's thinking "is a process of wish fulfillment," Pollack said. After the Gulf War, Pollack said, the Iraqi leader did go through a "lessons learned" process, determining that he should have waited until he had nuclear weapons before invading Kuwait. Thus, in Pollack's view, nuclear weapons would not serve to deter Saddam Hussein, but, instead, would have emboldenemboldened him. For Pollack, the main task is to carry out an effective invasion of Iraq. "We should go in with overwhelming force and with international support," he said, "And we should do the rebuilding properly, or else we'll have a new problem." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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